Azmar application back on agenda

Azmar International’s application to extract pozzolan from Pagan is back on the agenda at the Marianas Public Lands Authority.

MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro said the MPLA board of directors would conduct a regular board meeting this Friday and part of the agenda would be Azmar’s mining permit application.

She said newly appointed commissioner Edward Deleon Guerrero will make a presentation on Azmar’s application based on information received from the company since Aug. 17, when the board approved a conditional approval for Azmar and gave the firm 60 days to prove its financial capability to mine Pagan pozzolan.

“The commissioner, on behalf of the staff, is expected to present a draft permit proposal for Azmar, for approval of the board,” Demapan-Castro said. She refused to elaborate, adding only that the decision of whether to issue a mining permit or again defer action on Azmar’s application remains up to the board members.

Azmar’s application has not been placed on the MPLA board’s agenda since the Aug. 17 meeting.

But late last month, Azmar public information officer Don Farrell urged MPLA to honor what he claimed had been agreed upon by Azmar and CNMI government officials—including the governor and Demapan-Castro—during the Los Angeles business conference in September.

Farrell maintained that at that meeting, Demapan-Castro agreed that MPLA would immediately issue Azmar a mining permit, as well as a separate document stating requirements that Azmar must satisfy within 90 days upon issuance of the permit.

Sen. Paul Manglona, who was present during the meeting, has corroborated Farrell’s statement, saying he got the same impression from the discussion.

Likewise, an Associated Press reporter covering the L.A. conference quoted Gov. Juan N. Babauta as saying that he “struck a multimillion-dollar deal with an Arizona investor who wants to buy the islands’ volcanic ash for use in mixing cement and other construction purposes.”

Azmar president Kenneth Moore is based in Arizona.

In an interview shortly after she arrived from Los Angeles, Demapan-Castro denied that Azmar’s application was a done deal. She maintained that the 90-day conditional permit purported to be given to Azmar was a proposal that MPLA was still studying. (Agnes E. Donato)